Settlers of...

You may not believe this, but I've never actually played Settlers of Catan. Yep, I managed to make it through the entire Sauter family cruise without playing one game. I don't know where this game got introduced to the family, but I wasn't around when it was. I have never played. It's sad for me, I know.

I went to a game night with some women from my ward tonight. No, we didn't play Settlers of Catan. We played Settlers of Zarahemla. :P It's the LDS version of the game. If Catan is as much fun as Zarahemla was, I've seriously been missing out!! Why didn't anyone tell me?! It was a little slow to start and I felt a little out of my element at first, but about half way through it kind of clicked for me. Not only did I have a great time, but I won!! Beginner's luck, I'm sure. I had no strategy. No game plan at all. But somehow I pulled it off.

I don't know which version I'll end up buying, but I think I have to have this game.

Field Trips

My school age kids both had the opportunity to go on field trips this week. They both went to the Graham Fire Station. What a great time they had. They got to spray hoses, go up in the buckets, and tour the fire station. They got to sit in both the fire engine and an ambulance, Rachel's teacher got strapped onto a board for demonstration, and a class mate of Tyler's got that particular experience. The fire fighters even showed off a little by having a race to see who could get their gear on the fastest. They both came home with hats and toys and stories that made their eyes light up. They went different days, but both had great experiences.

Fridays are the days I don't have my neighbor to watch, so Becca and I decided to take a little field trip of our own. We trekked up to the $2 theater to see Horton Hears A Who. That tiny little girl ate almost an entire LARGE bucket of popcorn! She just kept eating and eating and eating. She even wanted a refill when we were done! They refill large buckets for free, so we took a second bucket home that she shared with Rachel and Tyler. She also scarfed down the free packet of fruit snacks the girl at the concession counter gave her before we even made it out to the car! The theater itself was freezing cold. I ended up making Becca sit on my lap for the second half because I was shivering. Becca loved the movie. She actually sat and watched the entire time, laughing her head off in some parts. Her laugh (not the movie) made me laugh too. I wasn't quite as impressed, but it wasn't the worst hour and a half I've ever spent either. Mostly it was just fun to get out and do something with Becca. We spend so much time running errands or sitting at home. It was so nice to take the afternoon to just play with her.

So those are our field trips for the week. I can't believe we only have 2 weeks of school left!

The curse continues

Scott and I have a curse. Every time we get a little money, something happens and instead of using that money to do something fun or pay down debt or do something that is simply our choice, we end up needing it for some little (or not so little) emergency. We just got our economic stimulus money. So guess what?...

I was just getting ready to take Rachel and a friend to their cheerleading class yesterday when my neighbor pointed out my tire was flat. There was a nail in the tire. Fortunately my neighbor was kind enough to not only drive all of us to cheerleading, but she also took us to Tyler's baseball game. Scott got the donut on the tire when he got home from work and I took it in to Les Schwab this morning. Sadly, and in staying consistent with our curse, it wasn't as simple as fixing a flat. It wasn't fixable. AND the front tires were old enough and worn enough that they were no longer legal. So instead of a few bucks to fix a flat, I ended up paying $332 for 4 new tires.

I'm actually not complaining. Scott likes to whine about our curse a little, but I'm grateful that these things tend to wait until we have a way to pay for them. And in the history of our curse, $332 isn't really all that bad. It's sure better than the time Scott got laid off. :)

Recap

Here's a brief recap of what's been going on with us in the couple months since I've blogged. I'm sure I'll forget a lot, so this is really just the basics.

I'm still teaching the Laurels at church. I LOVE it. I have the best girls. I've had the opportunity to head up a couple week day activities as well and while I hope they don't make a habit of giving me that responsibility, I did enjoy the activities I've done. I'll be teaching them to make German chocolate cheesecake this week (thanks Deb!). Dance Festival rehearsals have gone to stake wide instead of building wide, so I'm not really needed for that anymore. I'm both sad and relieved by that. I mentioned in my last post I was doing daycare for my neighbor. That's 4 days a week most weeks with occasional Fridays as well. I've started going to water aerobics at a local pool a couple nights a week which has been a nice change from yoga and the gym. Last month, for the first time, I played piano in public. Our ward had a talent show and I promised my laurels I'd do something, so I signed up to play the piano. I did not play well. In fact, I screwed it up big time. But I played. That was a really big step for me.
I had kind of a hard time turning 32 this year, but I had a really fantastic birthday party at Chopstix, a dueling piano bar, with some really great friends and that helped.

Scott was released from the Elders quorum presidency a couple months ago and called into Primary. After a few months of subbing and shuffling, he finally has a regular class. He's teaching Valiant 10. It's a good class for him. Since Rachel's teacher isn't always able to make it, he also has her class pretty frequently as well. He's now carpooling on a regular basis which has been nice for our budget, especially considering the ridiculous gas prices, and his job is going well. I wish there was more to report for him, but his job really takes up most of his time.

Rachel is doing cheerleading at The Little Gym and loving it. In fact, she loves it so much she wants to do "real" cheerleading with our neighbor this fall. We're looking into it, but no decisions have been made for sure. She has her first real crush on a boy at school and even had her seat changed because she was talking to him instead of doing her work. This is so not my little girl. She's only 8 for heaven's sake! She's still doing well at school, but I think she's a little bored. Her teacher doesn't work to keep the kids challenged like her teacher last year did, instead teaching to the lowest common denominator in the class. She's very nice and very capable, she just doesn't know how to keep the couple really smart kids in the class challenged. So Rachel is bored.

Tyler finished his second year of soccer and is already into his first season of t-ball. He loves it. He always seemed a little lost in soccer, although he loved being goalie. He gets baseball. At least mostly. He likes batting best, but is happy no matter what position he plays. His eye is responding well to the patching. He's now able to see the 5th line down on the vision chart instead of just the big E, and it gets better all the time. As his vision improves, so do his social skills. He's becoming a leader in all kinds of activities instead of being content just to follow. He also got to hold an 8 foot snake on his shoulders during the "Reptile Man" assembly at school. He loved every second of it. He is easily the smartest boy in his class and tested for the Challenge program at school.

Becca is doing a combination dance/gymnastics class for the second semester. She's actually tired of the dance portion of it and will go back to just gymnastics in the fall. We're also looking into all day kindergarten for her. She's trying to read and learning how to write her letters. Mostly she spends her days trying to figure out how to get into trouble, but she is also still my snuggler and the first in line for hugs and kisses. She lost her first tooth on my birthday and her second last night, and got her ears pierced last week, so she feels very grown up.


We're still doing the sign route on Fridays and Sundays. We try to go to the Build and Grow program at Lowe's as often as we can. If any of you are looking for something free for your kids to do, see if your local Lowe's is doing it. My kids love it. We're looking into swimming lessons for the kids. Hopefully that'll actually pan out this year. The first leaves are sprouting on my quaking aspen in the front yard, and we had record high temps this weekend! Driving home from gymnastics last week I got the triple pleasure of bright sun, Mt. Rainier out in full glory, and the wonderful smell of lawns being mowed. The days are getting longer, the sun is coming out more, and there are flowers everywhere. It's finally spring!

Why I'm going gray...

I know it's been a long time since I've blogged. I'll do a catch up post soon, but this isn't it.

My neighbor recently went back to work for the school district. I'm her child care while she's at work. Nathan and Becca are 9 days apart and have been friends since they were born. They have a love/hate relationship. They want to spend every minute together, but are either conspiring to get into trouble or screaming and fighting at each other. They really know how to push each other's buttons, and neither one is at all afraid to get physical. Kicking and pushing are just how they deal with each other. Unless they're getting along. Then they get into things together neither one of them would ever come up with on their own. They are T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

On Friday they asked if they could read books in Becca's room. I thought that sounded too good to be true. I figured it wouldn't last long and soon I'd hear the sounds of books being thrown against the wall or bodies being pushed off the bed. It was a pleasant surprise to hear nothing but quiet. Too quiet...

They were in fact reading books, but not in her room. They cut a hole in the screen to her bedroom window and climbed out on the ROOF!! Blankets, stuffed animals, the works. They'd made a nice cozy little reading spot on the sloped roof to my garage. I could not believe it. Not once did they think that they could roll off the roof like the crayons they were having fun dropping. It didn't occur to them that it would be unsafe or not allowed. They thought it would be fun, so they did it. I still can't believe it. Being on that roof scares me. What in the world would make two 5 year olds think it would be fun to sit on a roof to read?

Becca is trouble herself. But Becca and Nathan together are turning me prematurely gray.

There was one funny part of all of this. I was on my cell phone talking to Scott about it as I was trying to reach through the mangled screen to get the stuff off the roof when I dropped my phone. I saw it slide down the roof and was sure it was going to fall to the drive way and be destroyed. Nope, it just fell about 2/3 the way down. So I'm trying to make a hole in the screen big enough to get through to go get it when it rings again. It was Scott calling back. All he'd heard was muffled sounds and a couple big bangs. I couldn't get through the dang screen, and it wouldn't just pop out of the window frame, so I ended up completely tearing it apart to get through it. In the mean time I hear the house phone ring, but by that time I'm stepping out onto the roof myself so I let it go. It's Scott again. I can hear him on the answering machine telling Becca to pick up the phone, and she's yelling back at him "I can't Daddy! I'm in time out! Mommy will get mad at me!" I think she thought he could hear her. He kept saying over and over to pick up the phone, and she said over and over that she couldn't! He thought I had fallen through the window and off the roof and was laying dead or dying on the driveway and was trying to get her to check on me while he frantically rushed out of work. It was so funny to hear her yelling at the answering machine that I couldn't help but laugh.

Of course, Becca didn't learn her lesson the first time. Not 10 minutes after Nathan went home for the day, she was back out on the roof to better talk to her friends who were playing outside.